Studio portrait systems in which the same scene is captured simultaneously as a still video image and on a frame of film are well-known in the art. Such systems permit the customer to rapidly proof all of the frames without having to wait for the film to be developed and printed. References of interest in this field include U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,037 to Noble et al. and assigned to the present assignee, U.S. Pat. No. 4,716,470 to Levine, U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,962 to Levine, U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,526 to Larish and assigned to AutoStudio Corporation, European Patent Application No. 0,196,009 to Ishii and assigned to Casio Computer Co., Ltd. and Japanese Patent Application No. JP/63-261,241 assigned to Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.
One problem with such systems is that rapid proofing ultimately requires that some correlation be maintained between the still video frame number and the corresponding frame number on the film. Also, the customer's responses upon the rapid video proofing of each still video frame immediately after the photo session need also to be recorded, correlating the response for each frame with the still video frame number and, ultimately, with the film frame number. Customer responses may include the number of prints and any alterations such as cropping, zooming, tele, pan, etc.
Presently, while it is known to record information optically along the film edge adjacent each frame, such a recording technique suffers from the disadvantage that the information can only be recorded with the exposure of the film, and therefore is not easily supplemented. Moreover, such information is not available or retrievable from the film until after the film is has been developed. Accordingly, such a technique is not particularly helpful in tracking information that comes to light following the exposure of the film or finding such information prior to development of the film. As one example, such information would include customer responses following a rapid proofing session of viewing the still video frames.
As a result, in most cases such information is managed by manually writing it in a notebook, including the correlation between still video frame numbers and film frame numbers and the customer comments regarding each frame. The disadvantage of the latter technique is that it requires manual labor on the part of the person maintaining a notebook and is relatively slow, and moreover is not physically tied to either the video tape or the film. Another possibility would be to use the video tape or video storage medium as the medium on which to store such comments. However, this information is likewise not physically tied to the particular film frame.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a reliable system for maintaining information concerning simultaneous film/still video portraits in a rapid proofing system, in which the information for each film frame is unambiguously correlated to each film frame in such a manner that it will not be accidentally associated with another film frame.
It is another object of the invention to provide the foregoing information system in which the information can be recorded or retrieved at any time before or after film exposure and before or after film development.